The discovery of valuable minerals in arctic areas such as the north shore of Alaska, the islands of Canada, and Greenland have presented a problem of accessibility by sea for transportation of both personnel and equipment for development of the mineral values present in thee areas.
Normally, accessibility by sea is less than two months of the year and for the remaining period of time, accessibility is limited to both the size and weight limitations of airborne cargo carriers.
These limitations and the high cost per productive hour of labor due to climatic extremes and long logistic lines have made installation costs of exploration equipment prohibitively high and their installation economically questionable.
Ice formations also preclude the transport of cargo and the like in lakes and rivers for many months of each year.
Captured air bubble type ground effect vehicles have heretofore been proposed, such as in U.S. Pat. No. 3,458,007. They utilize rigid runners or skegs running fore and aft with spaced transverse seals to form a plenum chamber. This type of vehicle is useful only over water where the skegs project into the water to trap the air. Over land, because of irregularities in terrain, such rigid skegs cannot form an effective seal.